Iron, Cold Iron · 7:22am Mar 30th, 2015
Gold is for the mistress — silver for the maid —
Copper for the craftsman cunning at his trade.
"Good!" said the Baron, sitting in his hall,
"But Iron — Cold Iron — is master of them all."
— Rudyard Kipling, "Cold Iron."
Hello, everyone. I thought I should make a blogpost about what I've been up to lately, for them what are curious. I did some Jericho, and then I once again vanished. Well, the reason that happened was because I got annoyed as the zero advancement my novel project, Phoenix Fire, was having, so I decided to dick around with some Jericho again.
Then, a Christmas day miracle happened (two weeks ago). I scrapped all of my work on my novel, and started from scratch once more. A fresh start, two weeks, and 29k words later, and I and the editorial staff thing this edition might be the one. The story is now nigh unrecognizable, but remains a dark comedy adventure with a familiar certain (unnamed) narrator. It takes a lot of influence from the Calêrhos arc of Jericho, as well as my token brand of humor.
If you want a slight spoiler, here's the current summary for Phoenix Fire, then here it is in 20 words. A fanatical Prussian Luddite travels to post-apocalyptic America to destroy the supercomputer secretly ruling the cursed city of Misery.
Plus, as you may or may not know, there's a certain ponyfic out there which I've treated in Jericho with a mix of affectionate parody and taking the piss out of. I mostly used Cards as a vessel for mocking it. SuperAngstyPone, I no like you! Anyhow, though I might have a love-hate relation with that story (mostly its characters!), I decided to pick up the maxim of "if you don't like a book, write you own". Like with the butchering of Sleepy Oaks in Jericho, you'll no doubt see me fux with some ideas I liked from the story, but hated in execution or presentation or lack of implication or just something where I felt there was wasted potential. And then expand this to fit my idea of the world. So that by the end, how I've done therewith has an "oh yeah, that sounds familiar" feel thereto, only now possesses a whole new direction.
This is technically called homage, I understand. Though I still like to think of it as "no, no, no! Here's how it should have been!"
Now then, I've got to get back to documenting the intellectual decline of the West. This way I can point to and tell my grandkids exactly when this country started going to shit. I'm prepping for being an angry old man early! It turns out, nothing ever is good! Abandon ship!
*cough* Er, I mean, just thought y'all people might like to know what I'm up to.
I'm going to buy the shit (or alternatively pirate if it's even vaguely an option) out of that book.
Which fanfic were you ripping o- 'paying homage' to crush-senpai?
Title made me think of this.
i.lv3.hbo.com/assets/images/series/game-of-thrones/character/s3/balon-greyjoy-1024.jpg
"Are you prepared to pay the Iron Price, Crushric?"
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Warning: Rant
Well, I hate naming it. But it's FoE: Project Horizons. A story that I love-hate. I loved the world it was set in, the dangers of the Hoof region. I thought it was fascinating with a lot of interesting ideas and concepts to explore. I hated the characters. Half of the time, I wanted to slap the narrator, Blackjack, for being so whiny and unhelpful. Angst angst wahh waah—I get it, you feel bad! Also, what was with the giant fight scenes that never ended? I just glazed through most of those because "rah rah, kick the baddies to the curb" was how it always ended. Even when the protagonist got hurt bad, it rarely mattered in the long run. I found myself so frustrated. I just wanted the author to not do that. I wanted more deep characters in an interesting environment. When he focused mostly on angst and "muh feelz", I gave up. (Around the start of the 3rd volume, I left. No idea what happened after the first chapter or so, and I don't care to know anymore. It's just one big diabolus ex machina after the next.)
Hence why the character of Cards is often a whipping girl in Jericho: it's often me taking the piss out of the super angst-ridden characters from PH, but especially of Blackjack.
Double-hence, why the location of Misery in Phoenix Fire is sort of like the Hoof. Again, I like the "If you don't like a book, write you own" maxim. So, while the Misery ≠ Hoofington, there's clear inspiration in the interesting place it was. I don't pretend to hide this. I just want to write something that's not a angst-fest of circlejerking Waaaaah. In a sense, to write PH as I would have.
I don't expect it to be "better" by everyone's POV, just different. More "as I would have done it". With all my insanity, nonsense, black comedy, and dark tragedy. Because, again, if I didn't like it, don't complain: write your own book.
/rant
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I was thinking more along the lines of the Reich and stuff, but that works too.
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Ah, never read Fallout Equestria myself, couldn't get past the point soon-after the vault opens. Can't wait for your novel.
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I was speaking of a side-fic, the one that slide into grimderp after a while. The original FoE remains pretty gold in my eyes, for the most part.
But okay.
Hey Crushric. Are you planning to make this into a saga/series(i.e. Dresden Files) or just one book?
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Depends.
I suppose I'd like to make it a saga, but as it stands, it should be a self-contained book of around 90k words. Depends on how it all goes and what the prospective publisher would like. But as a saga, it'd be more-or-less the unnamed narrator (who is basically Jericho) continuing to go about, doing his thing, and generally ruining the world.
Why do you ask, SoothingCoffee?
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Eh, just curious.
Any chance you might consider keeping the original draft of Phoenix Fire and putting it in the back of the book as a sort of bonus content? If nothing else, maybe in a deluxe version, adding commentary or something as well/instead, I don't know 0..o